At some point of a "Repairing opposed tests once and for all" discussion (somewhere in here: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp ) it went out, that protection that armors offer is in few cases not as you would suspect (not to say wrong).

The proplem was, that armors with higher prices and lower availability tend to be worse than cheaper and more available ones.

For example:

Leather and Brigandine - when you buy the second one you expect, that paying 4 times the price you get better protection. It came up that this is not right. Leather offers better protection than Brigandine and costs 1/4 of the price (not to mention better availability).

The same is true in case of Scale and Ulthuan Scale pair, and to a lesser extend on Cloth and Robes.

After lots of discussing, testing, counting and help of people that put me on the right track (thx Dvang ), I came up with a fix, that fit my needs.

Cloth and Robes: Defence 0, Soak 0 (put both to 0, IMO neither one should offer any protection)

Leather: Defence 0, Soak 1 (lowered soak by 1)

Brigandine: Defence 1, Soak 1 (not changed)

Mail Shirt: Defence 1, Soak 2 (not changed)

Chainmail: Defence 1, Soak 3 (increased defence by 1)

Scale: Defence 2, Soak 3 (increased defence by 2, and lowered soak by 1)

Ulthuan Scale: Defence 1, Soak 4 (increased soak by 1)

Breast Plate & Chain: Defence 2, Soak 4 (increased defence by 1)

Full Plate: Defence 1, Soak 5 (not changed)

You can find the results of all this tests in here (open office 3.1 or higher required, or some other program, that can open "ods" files):

www.gmtools.excelocms.com/download/defence_orig.ods

On the left are tests on the original armor values, on the right tests on the above values.

All tests include:
- use of normal attack (only 1 success line, no block/dodge/parry or shield, for simplicity sake)
- use of 2-6 characteristic die (each time 1 blue die was converted to 1 red reckless die)
- use of 0-3 level of training in corresponding skill (WS / BS)
- use of 3-7 weapon damage (from fists to great weapon)
- hit chance probabilities generated with this tool: www.jaj22.org.uk/wfrp/diceprob.html , using 1 <P> default to hit difficulty, characteristic, and skill values mentioned above, and armor defence
- armor soak values
- toughness from 2-6 on test subject wearing armor (set on tabs at the bottom)

Resulting numbers are damage potential - meaning how much damage on average get past the armor per turn.

Lower damage potential in the table is better (more protection, less damage dealt).

Damage potential is counted like that:

hit chance * ( strength + weapon damage - soak - toughness)

hit chance depends on attribute value, skill training, and armor defence

Another possible fix on that is to just simply change the price of the armors.

But personally I prefer, when my Brigandine is better, not cheaper than Leather, same with Ulthuan Scale and Scale.

Cloth and Robes in my fix are the same, and offer no protection at all.

The only problem I still see with armors (both original and "fixed") is the "minimum 1 wound rule" which seems to brake all the counting ("damage potential" equals "to hit" chance on this rule). This makes armor soak mean less, and less while your toughness rises (as it is all about how often you can hit, because you will deal 1 damage only anyway), unless you are subject to really high damage (like giant using great weapon, or thunderous blow when comet is rolled, or double strike).

I don't like this rule to say the truth.. Need to think on something to replace it.

@EDIT

IMPORTANT!: by saying " armor protection " I mean both " soak " AND " defence " values taken into the account (not just soak).

Defence lowers the chance to hit, soak lowers the damage, what I'm counting is the resulting damage output, that took into the equation hit chance changes due to armor defense, and soak changes due to armor soak value.

I haven't had a chance to look at the ods sheet yet, but based on what you wrote I like it. I personally, would add 1 Defense to Robes (or to both Robes and Cloth).

I like the minimum 1 wound rule, as it present always the possibility of even small/low PCs and monsters getting licks in. It prevents the situation where a dwarf ironbreaker couldn't be touched by enemies, for example. I suppose, though, rather than a minimum 1 wound you could inflict 1 Fatigue (or maybe both 1 Fatigue and 1 Stress). It's 1 wound for non-boss enemies the same anyway, and yet still threatens to knock out PCs... although it isn't nearly as dangerous long-term as Wounds are, since fatigue is much easier for PCs to remove.

You're not taking defense into account. In both of the pairs that you specified, the more expensive armor offers a point of defense, and the cheaper one does not. You have to look at more than just soak value.

Venthrac said:

By saying "armor protection" I mean both soak AND defence, it is connected, and I know about it.

Look in the .ods file I provided.

I take into consideration not only defense (it lowers to hit chance) and soak (it lowers the damage), but also attacker different abilities and weapons.

I also wrote that here (bolded text):

Sunatet said:

It is all in that file I provided. And if you look into the thread the discussion started, You will know, that not only I did the calculations.

But again, I took the defense into the account.

To provide better insight on what I'm talking here about, small example (more are in the ods file) using original armor values.

Attacker (A)
Strength: 4 (1 in reckless)
Weapon Skill trained: 1
Weapon: Sword (Damage 5)

Defender (D)
Toughness 4

Test 1
D in Leather Armor (Defense 0, Soak 2)
A attacking D has his base dice pool like that:
1 <p> (default difficulty), 3 <B> 1 ® (strength value, 1 blue die changed into red reckless die), 1 <Y> (weapon skill trained)
Chance to hit is (according to the tool from my first post): 0.8345
It means, that A statistically hits D 83 times per every 100 rolls.

Damage that A deals to D on every hit is: 4 (A Strength) + 5 (sword) - 4 (D Toughness) - 2 (Leather soak) = 3 damage per hit.
So, if A hits D 83 times per 100 rolls, and deal 3 damage per hit, then he will deal 83*3=249 damage in 100 rounds, about 24.9 in 10 rounds, and 2.49 per 1 round.
Value in ods file is: 0.8345 (chance to hit) * 3 (damage per hit) = 2,5035 (damage potential in the table on green background in ods file)

Test 2
D in Brigandine (Defense 1, Soak 1)
A attacking D has his base dice pool like that:
1 <p> (default difficulty), 1 (armor defense), 3 <B> 1 ® (strength value, 1 blue die changed into red reckless die), 1 <Y> (weapon skill trained)
Chance to hit is (according to the tool from my first post): 0.7669
It means, that A statistically hits D 76 times per every 100 rolls.

Damage that A deals to D on every hit is: 4 (A Strength) + 5 (sword) - 4 (D Toughness) - 1 (Brigandine soak) = 4 damage per hit.
So, if A hits D 76 times per 100 rolls, and deal 4 damage per hit, then he will deal 76*4=304 damage in 100 rounds, about 30.4 in 10 rounds, and 3.04 per 1 round.
Value in ods file is: 0.7669 (chance to hit) * 4 (damage per hit) = 3,0676 (damage potential in the table on green background in ods file)

Summarising Leather and Brigandine protection:
On 100 rounds you are hit for 304 (Brigandine) - 249 (Leather) = 55 more damage if you are wearing Brigandine that costs 4 times the Leather price.
On 10 rounds you are hit for 30.4 (Brigandine) - 24.9 (Leather) = 5.5 more damage if you are wearing Brigandine that costs 4 times the Leather price.
On 1 round you are hit for 3.04 (Brigandine) - 2.49 (Leather) = 0.55 more damage if you are wearing Brigandine that costs 4 times the Leather price.

As you can see 1 defence, and 1 soak on Brigandine is no match for 0 defence, and 2 soak on Leather, and the price difference is quite big (and much, much bigger on Scale vs Ulthuan Scale, that behaves similiar to the above).

Hope that explains everything.

Yep. What Sunatet and I discovered, in the other thread, is that Soak provides more of a benefit overall than Defense. Unless the damage is very high (usually beyond the amount that can be achieved) or the attacker's chance to hit s already very low (usually as in just 2 <B> dice), Soak > Defense. Thus, an armor that has 0 Defence + 2 Soak (like Leather) is nearly always better than 1 Defence + 1 Soak (like Brigandine). However, the book has the Leather being much cheaper than the Brigandine. While we realize that part of this is just fluff (LEather *should* be cheaper and more common than Brigandine), the question is it unreasonable that leather provide significantly more protection than brigandine as well? While I don't necessarily agree that the success rate is too high, or that combat needs to be changed ... Sunatet (and my own investigation spurred by his idea) has convinced me that the armor should probably be adjusted to better reflect protection vs cost.

I think I'm going to use the new armor values Sunatet provided here, with the addition of both Cloth and Robes providing 1 Defense.

Would not an alternative progression where the defense of the armour doesn't go lower then the previous set make more sense?

eg.

Cloth and Robes: Defence 0, Soak 0 (I agree that this should be the base)

Leather: Defence 0, Soak 1 (lowered soak by 1)

Brigandine: Defence 1, Soak 1 (not changed)

Mail Shirt: Defence 1, Soak 2 (not changed)

Chainmail: Defence 1, Soak 3 (increased defence by 1)

Scale: Defence 2, Soak 3 (increased defence by 2, and lowered soak by 1)

Ulthuan Scale: Defence 2, Soak 3 (Same as Scale but less encumbering and much prettier)

Breast Plate & Chain: Defence 2, Soak 4 (increased defence by 1)

Full Plate: Defence 3, Soak 4 (It is after all plate)

Perhaps Cloth and Robes should be Defense 0, Soak 0/1 where they provide extra soak if no weapon is used?

Just my thoughts on it as I can't see why the harder armours would provide less defense then others in some instances. Please feel free to educate me as to why I'm wrong.

Explorer said:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with harder armors providing less defence.

The fact is, that the problem can be solved in more than one way.

If you like Your values more, then hey, it's Your game mate, You can adjust them as You please

But if You are asking me if those values You provided are "correct" in comparison to the armor price, then I simply don't know

If You want to find out, you can download the file I provided and change the values (hit chance, and soak) it will automatically adjust, and You can see it for yourself.

I'm just pointing, that there is a bit of divergence (is that the right word?) in armor vs price values, and provide some quick fix that fits me (I tried to not put the defence higher than 2).

It's in no way the only fix that exist.

Simple price adjustement will do the trick too.

Explorer said:

Defense and Soak are not the same thing. From a fluff standpoint, of course, the heavier the armor the less Defense it really should provide (and the higher the soak) ... since it is harder to move/dodge in heavier armor. Defense is about avoiding being hit (or deflecting blows) while Soak is about absorbing damage. So, it is quite reasonable

However, from a game balance point of view, some sacrifice will probably need to be made just to get armors balanced between too little and too much protection. Sure, you *could* increase both Defense and Soak. As Sunatet said, there is more than one way to adjust these. Just keep in mind that Defense and Soak are both "Defensive" bonuses to armors, and don't necessarily have to be exclusively increasing. As long as the overall armor effectiveness of the armors progress (keeping in mind that +1 Defense is not as effective as +1 Soak).

For example:

The difference in effectiveness between

1 Defense 1 Soak and...

1) 2 Defense 1 Soak

2) 1 Defense 2 Soak

#2 is significantly more effective as an 'upgrade' armor than #1, because Soak provides more 'defensive value' then Defense (close to a ratio of 2 Defense for 1 Soak, I think).

So, some of it depends on how much of a difference you want between armors:

How much different do you want a Mail Shirt vs Chainmail?

1) Mail Shirt: Defence 1, Soak 2 and Chainmail: Defence 1, Soak 3 has more effectiveness for the Chainmail over a Mail Shirt, than

2) Mail Shirt: Defence 1, Soak 2 and Chainmail: Defence 0, Soak 3. This second option makes Chainmail only slightly better than a Mail Shirt.

So, it's kind of a matter of degrees.

For defence values have you taken into account that banes from defence may cancel boons and heavily reduce damage in some cases beyond what 1 soak can accomplish?

Gallows said:

I'm at work right now, so I can't check the cards, but let's assume, that we have a very powerfull card, that grants us additional 5 damage on 2 boons.
Let's also assume that we can use this card every round (yeah, no recharge).
Feel the power in short

One important thing to remember below, is that boons add damge only WHEN YOU HIT (no damage increase when you miss). Other boon effect can happen on miss, but no damage increase (you have nothing to increase when you missed right?).

So again the example provided by me above, but with boons added into equation.

Attacker (A)
Strength: 4 (1 in reckless)
Weapon Skill trained: 1
Weapon: Sword (Damage 5)

Defender (D)
Toughness 4

Test 1
D in Leather Armor (Defense 0, Soak 2)
A attacking D has his base dice pool like that:
1 <p> (default difficulty), 3 <B> 1 ® (strength value, 1 blue die changed into red reckless die), 1 <Y> (weapon skill trained)
Chance to hit is (according to the tool from my first post): 0.8345
It means, that A statistically hits D 83 times per every 100 rolls.

Damage that A deals to D on every hit is: 4 (A Strength) + 5 (sword) - 4 (D Toughness) - 2 (Leather soak) = 3 damage per hit.
Here is a change, because we need to count the damage increase, when boons happens:
Chance to get 2 boons in this case is: 0.3298.
So, 0.3298 times you hit for 3+5=8 damage, and rest of the time (0.6702) you hit for 3 damage.
That gives us average damage per hit (yeah, WHEN YOU HIT): ( 0.3298*8 )+( 0.6702*3 )=2.6384+2.0106=4.649 average damage PER HIT.

So, if A hits D 83 times per 100 rolls, and deal 4.649 damage per hit, then he will deal 83*4.649=385,867 damage in 100 rounds, about 38.58 in 10 rounds, and 3.86 per 1 round.

Test 2
D in Brigandine (Defense 1, Soak 1)
A attacking D has his base dice pool like that:
1 <p> (default difficulty), 1 (armor defense), 3 <B> 1 ® (strength value, 1 blue die changed into red reckless die), 1 <Y> (weapon skill trained)
Chance to hit is (according to the tool from my first post): 0.7669
It means, that A statistically hits D 76 times per every 100 rolls.

Damage that A deals to D on every hit is: 4 (A Strength) + 5 (sword) - 4 (D Toughness) - 1 (Brigandine soak) = 4 damage per hit.
Here is a change, because we need to count the damage increase, when boons happens:
Chance to get 2 boons in this case is: 0.2964.
So, 0.2964 times you hit for 4+5=9 damage, and rest of the time (0.7036) you hit for 4 damage.
That gives us average damage per hit (yeah, WHEN YOU HIT): ( 0.2964*9 )+( 0.7036*4 )=2.6676+2.8144=5.482 average damage PER HIT.

So, if A hits D 76 times per 100 rolls, and deal 5.482 damage per hit, then he will deal 76*5.482=416,632 damage in 100 rounds, about 41.66 in 10 rounds, and 4.17 per 1 round.

Summarising Leather and Brigandine protection:
On 100 rounds you are hit for 416,632 (Brigandine) - 385,867 (Leather) = 30.765 more damage if you are wearing Brigandine that costs 4 times the Leather price.
On 10 rounds you are hit for 41.66 (Brigandine) - 38.58 (Leather) = 3.08 more damage if you are wearing Brigandine that costs 4 times the Leather price.
On 1 round you are hit for 4.16 (Brigandine) - 3.86 (Leather) = 0.3 more damage if you are wearing Brigandine that costs 4 times the Leather price.

Now, I've taken boons into the account.
And not just any boons, very powerfull boons that can happen every round, and increase damage a lot.
But that didn't change much.

And on existing cards most of the boon effects is around 1-2 damage increase, they occur only on few cards, and those cards can be usually used no more than once per few rounds, so the difference on boon damage from the above example is much, much lower in reality.

I checked the chances for geting boons in few other cases, and there is about 1-4 percent (0.01-0.04) chance change per 1 defence point (depending on the pool).

I say just skip it, because its effect is low, and complicates counting.

You've made some interesting points and i have to say i agree from a mathematical and game balance point of view.

Not all armours were equal though, brigandine armour for example was a very early form of armour, before scale and longer before chainmail and without our maths they were generally costed on how tricky they were to make at the time. Perhaps brigandine is less available because it has fallen out of favour? As an old technology costing more, people want leather armour (which was constantly being tweaked and updated in earth history) as they are sacrificing minimal protection for a much better cost. Leather is more common because more is wanted (supply and demand).

Also, this system does not count relative protection against differing attacks - neither brigandine nor leather armour was amazing at stopping piercing attacks wheras a concussive blow could do severe damage to the individual through plate armour even though plate was extremely good at stopping piercing and edged weapons so the values provided for defence and soak are abstract at best - if each armour is decided upon differently they may have varying results.

You might as well just have Armour A, Armour B, Armour C etc etc with general increasing effectiveness otherwise.

You are also missing an important part in a couple examples, which I don't have the rulebook handy to remember if they actually cover it.

But a mail shirt only protects arms and body, leaving legs and head open to called shots. Chain mail on the other hand offers full body protection, hence better soak, less defense and increased cost.

The Breast plate and Chain is 1/4 on the body only it should be 0/3 everywhere else as essentially it's chain mail with a breast plate.

Gallows said:

Right now it is only looking, as Sunatet mentioned, on whether the attack hits (gets 1 success) or not. In the other thread, I had shown that Defense plays a larger role in reducing hits with 3+ successes down to 1 or 2 successes. It certainly is a bonus ... but again, once the attacker's skill (# of dice) get higher the effectiveness of Defense continues to decline (although not as badly as 1-2 success results). The same thing applies to banes vs boons. Sure, defense helps a little, but not as much overall.

dvang said:

I know but if it gave the opponent the one bane to cancel his +6 damage from reckless cleave then it would he a hell of a lot better than 1 soak. If you use two improved defence cards for instance that one misfortune die could be the deciding factor. But yes.,.. soak is better overall since it's not a varied result.

You need to get out of the habit of fixation. Yes, in one particular instance a certain effect or action may seem ridiculously powerful but this is always in isolation.

The game is fairly well balanced - being able to acquire, time and use those actions and effects is another balancing factor. No matter what 'broken' undefeatable combo you come up with to prove a point, there will be a perfect counter attack to it.

Yes a high strength, trained and lucky troll slayer can inflict hideous damage with troll feller strike - but would you want to be a cumbersome, unarmoured and reckless opponent when the troll whallops you back...? No.